


Six Years Later

by jinyangie



Series: i met you when i was seventeen [2]
Category: AB6IX (Band), CIX (Band), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Deephwi, M/M, One Shot, i miss jinhwi, i miss jinyoung and daehwi together, i tried to do angst but this ended up cheesy lol, is still the superior ship uwu, jinhwi, youngdanz
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22436290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinyangie/pseuds/jinyangie
Summary: Daehwi just wanted to sleep. He didn't know he'd spend the rest of the night rekindling an old flame.
Relationships: Bae Jinyoung & Lee Daehwi, Bae Jinyoung/Lee Daehwi
Series: i met you when i was seventeen [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1614370
Comments: 5
Kudos: 37





	Six Years Later

There’s nothing Lee Daehwi wanted more than to collapse in his hotel bed and call it a night. Of course, taking a hot shower before going into a deep, uninterrupted sleep was within his plans, too.

He swore he just wanted to sleep. Rekindling an old flame wasn’t part of the plan.

After travelling from Incheon to Bangkok at the wee hours of the morning and jumping directly into rehearsals upon landing, he didn’t even get 30 minutes of rest before he had to play MC for the KPOP festival that night.

An old love being part of the concert line-up should have hinted to him that the night wouldn’t be an ordinary one. It was the first time in a long while that they attended the same overseas schedule. He couldn’t deny that his heart skipped a beat every time he’d think about it, wondering if there was still a chance to patch things up. But every time his thoughts would head that way, he chastised himself.

The past few years were incredibly busy for the both of them, and neither reached out to try and fix what was broken. Before they knew it, it had been too long to do anything about it.

When Daehwi found himself inside the elevator with Bae Jinyoung, he wanted to step out and cut the elevator trip short. He couldn’t even remember the last time they had been alone with each other.

Daehwi cried to hold the door open for him. The elevator almost closed but it opened again for Daehwi, who was panting and huffing after running and shouting to hold the elevator door. If Daehwi knew who was the sole person inside, he wouldn’t have chased after it and just waited for the next one.

“Daehwi-yah…” Jinyoung’s voice trailed off, letting his voice linger as the younger boy didn’t make any motion of coming inside.

Daehwi blinked a couple more times before finally stepping in. He wanted to back out, but he warned himself that he would make the situation more awkward than it actually was.

“Why are you alone?” Jinyoung asked Daehwi who still hadn’t said a thing.

He pushed the button for his floor number as he answered, “I told my manager to go out and eat. I’m not hungry. Why are you alone?”

“I told the members to go out without me. I just want to order room service tonight.”

Daehwi nodded, his stomach churning and his thoughts running wild like a whirlwind. He couldn’t make out his own thoughts, and he’d like it very much if he could get out of the elevator soon enough. To his dismay, he realized that only one floor number was punched in. He’s getting down on the same floor as his hyung.

“You did well tonight, Daehwi.”

In the quiet of the elevator, Jinyoung’s voice echoed, bringing back a lot of memories Daehwi had tried to bury in his desperation to forget his one great love. But with just one sentence, all the time they spent together, loving, supporting and cheering each other, just suddenly came flashing back.

During those times Jinyoung would pat his back and congratulate him for his hard work. And the other times he’d wipe Daehwi’s tears when the younger boy thought he failed and didn’t do well.

Daehwi slowly turned his head towards his hyung and saw him staring back at him. His hyung’s lips were pursed in a smile, and it took Daehwi a great deal of effort to return the smile.

“It’s been a while, Daehwiyah.” Jinyoung said.

It had been so long since he heard that endearment so Daehwi just nodded, still not having the courage to answer. Years passed without having to accidentally confront each other, and he eventually wondered if he’d ever be forced to confront his past. And when he finally had to, Daehwi found out that he couldn’t trust himself not to say anything he’d regret after.

When Daehwi didn’t answer and just kept staring at him, Jinyoung laughed. Apprehensively, he reached out and stroked the back of Daehwi’s head. The younger boy flinched before he could stop it, causing the older to pull back his hand.

Years ago, it would have been a normal form of affection between the two, with Jinyoung already doting on him from the time they were trainees in the survival show to the time when they were members of the same idol group sneaking little kisses in waiting rooms. Until they were in separate groups and meeting clandestinely at empty parking lots or hole-in-the-wall restaurants in the dead of night.

They were staring in silence, probably both wondering how it all came to this, that even the simplest touch made the other flinch, when the elevator door finally opened on their floor.

Daehwi cleared his throat, breaking the awkward silence and stepping off the elevator. Unconsciously, he waited for Jinyoung to step out as well before walking towards his room. He felt a small pang how the two of them could easily fall back into their old patterns. Him walking in front of Jinyoung, and the other always following quickly behind.

“Have you eaten dinner, Daehwi?”

“Not yet. I’m not feeling very hungry,” said Daehwi.

“I can order room service for us, you know.”

Jinyoung’s offer was followed by a silence from the younger boy, who was unsure how to answer his hyung. A part of him wanted to say yes, but he knew that saying yes could lead to other things he might not yet be ready for.

“It will be just like the old times, Daehwi,”said Jinyoung, his voice above a whisper.

Maybe Daehwi was just imagining it, but to his ears he heard a bit of longing, a bit of yearning for the years past, that as hard as they tried were already long gone.

Daehwi forced himself to ignore it and said, “I just want to rest tonight, hyung.”

Jinyoung just nodded, letting Daehwi’s answer just linger a little longer in the air. The younger one regretted it immediately, but his pride just wouldn’t let him say yes.

They walked in complete silence along the corridor until the Jinyoung stopped in front of a room.

“So. This is me.”

“See you around, hyung.”

Jinyoung’s smile visibly dropped when Daehwi said it with so much finality before walking away as if he merely said goodbye to a casual acquaintance he had no intention of seeing again.

Daehwi already reached his room and he still didn’t hear Jinyoung move from his spot. He still didn’t hear a door open and then close, and he was worried that his hyung would just really stand there waiting for him until he turned around and walked back. But he told himself that he wouldn’t let his heart be wavered. He firmly opened his room and stepped inside without looking back even once.

But after closing the door, Daehwi’s knees betrayed him as he collapsed to the floor. He realized that he had been shaking the entire time. Sprawled on the floor, with stupid tears streaming down his face, he beat himself up for not saying yes to his hyung.

He wanted to have dinner with him like the old times. He wanted to spend the rest of the night locked up in a room with him, talking and laughing until they both pass out, one after the other. He wanted to slip under the covers with Jinyoung and wake up in the middle of the night wrapped in his warm hug.

He wanted exactly what they had in the old times. 

  
  
  
  
  


Later that night, Daehwi found himself knocking on Jinyoung’s door, with a bottle of wine in hand.

The hot shower did the trick. It was enough to wake up his senses, calm him down and stop crying. For a good minute, he thought he wouldn’t be able to stop. When he finally did, he knew exactly what to do.

After making sure his eyes weren’t too puffy from crying, he came knocking at Jinyoung’s door, all nerves and nervous laughter. He stuttered when the boy opened his door to welcome him, but he tried to just laugh it off, as if changing his mind didn’t take him to cry his eyes out first. Jinyoung welcomed him with the biggest grin, gently pushing the boy inside the room and sitting him down at the dining table.

He didn’t know he missed his hyung this much. All these years of feeling lonely, he thought it was just having someone who cares for him that he missed. But it was Jinyoung. He missed the first and only boy he ever loved.

It wasn’t for luck of trying on his part that he didn’t love anyone else after the breakup. He tried, but he just couldn’t find himself to care for anyone else as much as he did for Jinyoung. There were flings, of course, but not one went so far as to be serious.

When he found himself sitting on Jinyoung’s hotel room’s floor, sipping wine and catching up on all that happened in the years after their last phone call, Daehwi wasn’t very surprised at all. Jinyoung’s nonchalance about it showed that it was not something unexpected for the other boy, too.

When Daehwi entered the room and saw that the boy actually ordered room service for two, including a slice of his favorite cake, he knew that Jinyoung expected him to come. He decided not to give a comment on it, and just acted as if they both planned for him to be there anyway.

After two glasses of wine, Daehwi was starting to feel light-headed, but he felt great. His laughter was getting easier, getting louder. Even Jinyoung was loosening up, too.

They were seated on the dining area when they first started drinking, but they eventually found themselves sitting on the floor next to the bed. They were both leaning next to the bed, their bodies less than a meter apart, facing each other.

A couple of times they’d be so close to each other that sometimes it would feel like Jinyoung was leaning in for a kiss. Despite missing the feel of Jinyoung’s lips on his, Daehwi would pull back and the distance would once again become greater

Both of them were not yet drunk. While Daehwi didn’t have a high tolerance for alcohol, his drinking habits definitely improved as he got older. As for Jinyoung, a bottle of wine was not enough to get him drunk at all.

“I can’t believe I’ve been here for more than two hours already,” said Daehwi, after noticing the clock struck midnight.

“And you can stay a few more hours, you know,” said Jinyoung.

Daehwi groaned. “My flight is at 11 in the morning tomorrow, but they told me I have to be ready by 9. I really have to be up early.”

“Mr. Lee Daehwi, you can’t just waltz in here with a bottle of wine and say you’re sleeping early,” said Jinyoung, sitting straighter and looking strictly at him.

It made Daehwi laugh, remembering how Jinyoung used to beg him to stay up later than his bedtime, just to eat ramen or go for a midnight stroll.

“I wish we could just stay like this forever.”

When the words slipped out of his tongue, he immediately wanted to take it back. He knew he was treading dangerous territory and saying it could lead to so many things. He could find himself heartbroken again, but a part of him wished for something greater.

“What happened to us, Daehwi?”

He gave his hyung a sad smile and shrugged his shoulders. “Life, I guess. We were too busy to stay in a relationship.”

“But we were in love. Until the very end we were in love,” said Jinyoung wistfully, focusing his gaze on Daehwi who’d rather be looking anywhere but at him.

Daehwi sighed and didn’t answer. He couldn’t remember how many times he had asked himself the same question over and over again. They were so in love, so why did they have to break up? Again and again, he’d come to the conclusion that it probably wasn’t just the right time for them, because there was no other reason people as in love as them would decide to leave each other.

“When we officially broke up, what hurt me the most was when you didn’t even put up a fight when I asked if we should. I cried for hours and you were just sitting there brooding, just waiting for me to stop crying and not even saying anything. And when I finally did, you just drove me home, said goodbye, and disappeared from my life forever.”

“Hey,” started Jinyoung. “I didn’t just disappear. Even weeks after that I kept calling you. At first you’d answer, but when you finally stopped answering, that’s when I realized that we were really over. When I realized that I really lost you, that’s the only time I allowed myself to cry.”

Daehwi let out a sigh, remembering how he kept missing Jinyoung’s calls and falling asleep before he could call him back. Then the calls stopped coming and Daehwi never got to call him back again. He wanted to explain himself, but he knew there was no point.

“You know, back then I’d wonder why celebrity couples break up. I wondered what could have happened that they’d risk their careers to be with the person they love, but they’d just break up in the end. I swore that it will never happen to us, because I thought our love was strong enough to withstand anything. But when it did, I was crushed.”

He felt his emotions building up, his eyes welling up, but before any tears could fall, Jinyoung started laughing.

“I can’t believe you just referred to us as a celebrity couple. We were kids!” Jinyoung said, barely getting the words out in between the laughter.

Daehwi rolled his eyes, grabbed the nearest pillow he could reach, and started hitting his hyung with it. But he wasn’t really annoyed, just embarrassed to admit that he did look at the two of them as a celebrity couple. It sounded annoyingly romantic to him then, but it was definitely what they were. A celebrity couple, just really young, really foolish, but very much in love.

He ended up laughing as well, and hit Jinyoung even harder just to hide his embarrassment. When they finally calmed down, Jinyoung heaved a big, heavy sigh, and reached out for Daewhi’s hand.

Without breaking eye contact, Jinyoung said, “I’m sorry for all the times I hurt you then. It’s too late now to say this, but I wish I was a better boyfriend.” 

“I’m pretty sure I hurt you along the way, too. It wasn’t just you, Jinyoungie hyung. We were both pretty tired then, not knowing how to handle a relationship when we were both restarting our careers. It wasn’t just your fault, hyung.” Daehwi squeezed Jinyoung’s hand, assuring him that what happened in the past was something neither had to be sorry for.

Jinyoung smiled in return, but he shook his head and said, “I wish I fell in love with you when I was older, more mature, when I already knew how to love better.”

This time, it was Jinyoung who couldn’t look Daehwi in the eye and stared at everywhere else but the boy. The younger one reached out and touched his hyung’s chin, angling it and forcing his hyung to look at him.

“I’m glad that I met you when I met you, and I’m glad I fell in love with you when I did. I hope you do, too.”

For a while, neither of them said a word. They let the silence speak for them as they drank more wine and as they watched the clock inch closer to morning. For a while, they were transported back to their old dorm room, where they shared comfortable silence as Daehwi composed more music while Jinyoung watched one performance after another. It was a comfortable silence that neither of them have tried sharing with as much joy with anyone else.

“You know what day is today?” asked Jinyoung, breaking the silence.

“Of course. It’s January 27. I can’t believe it’s been six years.”

“I still miss that time, you know. I’m happy where I am right now in my career, but I still find myself missing the hyungs every now and then. I miss touring with them even though we almost bled ourselves dry working all the time. I miss the dorm and everyone. But it’s you I miss the most.”

“I miss you a lot, too.”

“Daehwi, can I still give us a shot?”

Instead of replying, Daehwi inched closer to Jinyoung, pulled his face towards him, and kissed him full in the mouth. He felt his hyung smiling as he kissed him even more. Jinyoung hyung’s lips were as soft as he remembered.

Jinyoung pulled away, making Daehwi frown, but his hyung said, “I’m not the same Jinyoung you loved before, but I loved you then and I love you even more know. I never stopped. I can love you more every day. I’m not--”

Daehwi cut off his hyung’s words and kissed him again. This time the kiss went deeper and he held his hyung’s face in both hands. Jinyoung responded enthusiastically, kissing and biting, pulling Daehwi closer by placing his hands on the younger’s back. He pulled hm towards him and soon enough, Daehwi was already sitting on his lap.

After a few breathless minutes, Jinyoung pulled away again. “I promise to be a better boyfriend to you, Lee Daehwi. I cannot promise to never make you cry again, but if I do end up making you cry, I hope it’s out of happiness. I really love you, Lee Daehwi”

Daehwi laughed, brushed off Jinyoung’s bangs away from his eyes, and said, “I love you, too, Jinyoungie hyung. Now shut up and kiss me.”

Smiling, Jinyoung caressed Daehwi’s cheeks, sending shivers running down the younger boy’s back. It was a simple gesture, but he missed his Jinyoung hyung’s touch on his skin, especially the gentle caresses that never failed to calm him down and remind him that all was well as long as they were together.

So Jinyoung kissed Daehwi alright.

He kissed the small space between Daehwi’s eyebrows as he gently closed his eyes. One by one, he gently kissed Daehwi’s eyelids and then bopped his nose. He kissed Daehwi’s ears one after another, before he tenderly gave Daehwi’s neck soft, little kisses. When Jinyoung felt Daehwi’s body react, shivering, he finally kissed Daehwi on the lips.

They kissed for knew how long, making up for the time they spent away from each other. They whiled away the hours kissing, as if they were never separated at all, scared to separate again.

When they finally stopped kissing, they were already lying on the bed, Jinyoung lying on top of Daehwi, who was smiling as if it was the first time he smiled for a long time.

Jinyoung softly brushed Daehwi’s soft blond hair as he whispered, “So does this mean we can be roommates again?”

Daehwi laughed and pushed his Jinyoung hyung away from him. When his hyung plopped on his back on the space next to him, this time it was Daehwi who positioned himself on top of Jinyoung, who happily hugged him closer.

“Not so fast, Bae Jinyoung-sshi,” said Daehwi, softly touching Jinyoung’s nose. “Let’s not rush it this time. It will be more difficult, but I really want us to work this out.”

Jinyoung nodded and stole a kiss. With barely any space between each others’ lips, he said, “This time, let’s love even harder.”

Happy to finally be reunited after years of being away from each other, they sealed the promise with a kiss. They had no idea how they survived without each other, but this time, they would do everything in their power to make sure it wouldn’t happen again.

They kissed, they laughed, they touched, and they kissed again. They kissed even when they were breathless and even when their lips were sore and bruised from all the kissing and the biting.

They kissed until they fell asleep, assured in the presence of each other and determined that this time, they would do everything to be together forever.

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a year since Therefore. I miss Wanna One. I miss Jinhwi. Thus, I wrote a fic. ;___;
> 
> Wrote this in a day for the Therefore anniv so I'm pretty sure there'll be errors. I'll come back and edit.
> 
> Still, I hope you'll like it!


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